


On the Edge

by DarlingV



Category: Murder by Numbers (2002)
Genre: Gen, Power Dynamics, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-19
Updated: 2011-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:23:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingV/pseuds/DarlingV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin thinks, Richard is a jerk, and the power play between them may be the only thing making life worth living.  Nothing unusual there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't actually slash although, rereading it, it certainly could be (it just happens, I swear!). Please don't read if words that begin with 'f' and rhyme with 'luck' and other obscenities offend you greatly.

The sun dipped into the Pacific, flaring red before disappearing altogether. Stars began to wink to life in the purpling sky. The drowsy calm of evening muted everything from the crashing waves to the gulls wheeling overhead, and a heavy, humid stillness settled on the abandoned house on the bluff.

Justin watched the day die from the porch of the ruined building. He was situated on the edge where the railing had long fallen away, feet dangling far above jagged rocks and surf. Someday the slowly decaying planks beneath him would tumble and splinter on the rocks, and the possibility that that someday was imminent drew Justin to the spot. It was dangerous. His body was reacting appropriately, introducing adrenaline to his bloodstream and quickening his heartbeat. Here, perched on the precarious boundaries of man and nature and life and death, the boy felt alive—no mere automaton going through the motions, no half-invisible ghost passing through an alien world.

It was here that Justin could escape the rigid, tightly bound existence he was born into and become a god. Here, with danger animating his body and the ocean spread below and before him, he was free. There were no feuding parents, no divorces, no papers and tests; there was no need to reach for impossibly high standards and self-expectations. Nothing existed but the warped boards beneath him and the ever-present specter of death.

Here was a beautiful morbidity that the best of poets could appreciate.

“Boo!”

Justin was startled from his meditative thoughts by the sudden sound. His heart leaped into his throat as he caught himself from flinching away from the intrusion and off of the bluff.

Laughter and the dull thud of boots against wood gave the intruder’s identity away before the lazy drawl had a chance. “So fucking predictable.”

“Richard,” Justin said blankly by way of acknowledgment. “You scared me.”

The other boy, capable of breaking the stillness of the evening with his mere presence, hauled Justin to his feet. Richard laughed again, miraculously keeping the cigarette in his mouth in place. “That’s real hard. You’re always scared of something, you know that? Like a pussy. That’s what you are—a pussy.”

Justin pulled away from Richard. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want,” the blond purred. He carelessly discarded his cigarette and ground the smoldering butt into the wooden floor. Richard closed the distance between them, entering Justin’s personal space with the practiced ease of an individual who doesn’t mind causing a little discomfort. “C’mon, say it,” he wheedled, giving the other seventeen year-old a light shove. “Just say it. Three words—‘Fuck off, Rich.’ That’s it. Say those words and I’m outta your hair and you can go back to whatever moody intellectual shit you were doing.”

Justin attempted to pull away again, but Richard caught his arm. He flinched away from the contact even as every nerve in his body seemed to flare to life.

Richard’s grin was smug, sure, and self-satisfied—Richard Haywood’s essence in a single expression. “You can’t say it, can you? You never can. Know why?”

“Because you never stop talking?”

The retort was answered with action. Richard pulled Justin to him and grabbed the other boy’s face, meeting his eyes with the confident gaze of a predator. “No. It’s because you want me here. You know it, I know it, I know you fucking know it. Say it.”

Justin leveled a stony glare at him, refusing to surrender any words at all.

A sad expression flitted across Richard’s face, but it was replaced by a smirk before it could take root. “Thought so,” he said, releasing Justin and giving his aggravatingly tidy hair a light ruffle. “C’mon. I gotta pass that test tomorrow.”

“Did you bring your textbook?”

Richard scoffed. “Fuck, no. You’re the tutor here—you bring the book.”

“I did,” Justin replied, stealing over to his backpack and tucking his now-unruly hair behind his ears. “I wanted to see if you were prepared.”

“I don’t prepare. Preparing’s for dorks like you.” Richard flopped into one of the old house’s chairs, evoking a loud creak. “Dorks who don’t get laid.”

Justin smiled humorlessly and sat next to Richard, textbook at the ready. “Do you even know what the chapter’s about?”

“The fuck do you think? If I knew that, I wouldn’t need a tutor.”

“It covered mitosis and meiosis.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Richard threw an arm around Justin, delighting in the discomfort the action caused. “Gimme the short and dirty version.”

Justin didn’t shy away, well aware of Richard’s game. “I’ll try to keep it to simple, monosyllabic words for you.”

Balanced was restored to the house on the bluff as the two boys settled into an easy familiarity, their opposing personalities reaching equilibrium. Both of them were on the edge, and a shift either way would send them crashing down to the rocks and sea. They played a dangerous game between them—a game that placed them between fulfillment and oblivion.

That danger was the only thing keeping them alive.


End file.
